Edge-based site analytics

ABSTRACT

A request for a page is received. In response to the request, content comprising the page is provided. The content includes an element which when executed by a browser with which the page request is associated causes the page as rendered by the browser to send a request initiated by the page to obtain an associated requested content. The request initiated by the page is received. A metric associated with the request initiated by the page is determined. Data reflecting the metric associated with the request initiated by the page is stored.

CROSS REFERENCE TO OTHER APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/556,556 entitled EDGE-BASED SITE ANALYTICS filed Dec. 20, 2021, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 63/129,864 entitled EDGE BASED SITE ANALYTICS filed Dec. 23, 2020, each of which is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A user utilizes a client browser to access a publisher page. A publisher's content management system (CMS) provides the publisher page, which may include content and/or scripts to retrieve additional content, such as ads. The publisher page may include a script that is executed by the client browser to track and monitor how the user interacts with content on the page. The script detects user activity or inactivity with the page content and reports this information to an analytics site. This reduces a performance of the client browser in serving the publisher page because additional overhead is required to execute the script.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various embodiments of the invention are disclosed in the following detailed description and the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a prior art system to serve web pages and ads.

FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a prior art system to distribute web page content.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a system to provide user-specific optimized content.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a system to provide user-specific optimized content.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a content optimization server/service.

FIG. 5A is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a system to create and maintain a user knowledge base.

FIG. 5B is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a system to create and maintain a content analytics knowledge base.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process to provide user-specific optimized content.

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process to generate dynamically a web page comprising user-specific optimized content.

FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process to determine user-specific content to be included in a dynamically generated optimized web page.

FIG. 9 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process to perform edge-based site analytics.

FIG. 10 is an example of a publisher page and a publisher page analyzer in accordance with some embodiments.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a process; an apparatus; a system; a composition of matter; a computer program product embodied on a computer readable storage medium; and/or a processor, such as a processor configured to execute instructions stored on and/or provided by a memory coupled to the processor. In this specification, these implementations, or any other form that the invention may take, may be referred to as techniques. In general, the order of the steps of disclosed processes may be altered within the scope of the invention. Unless stated otherwise, a component such as a processor or a memory described as being configured to perform a task may be implemented as a general component that is temporarily configured to perform the task at a given time or a specific component that is manufactured to perform the task. As used herein, the term ‘processor’ refers to one or more devices, circuits, and/or processing cores configured to process data, such as computer program instructions.

A detailed description of one or more embodiments of the invention is provided below along with accompanying figures that illustrate the principles of the invention. The invention is described in connection with such embodiments, but the invention is not limited to any embodiment. The scope of the invention is limited only by the claims and the invention encompasses numerous alternatives, modifications and equivalents. Numerous specific details are set forth in the following description in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention. These details are provided for the purpose of example and the invention may be practiced according to the claims without some or all of these specific details. For the purpose of clarity, technical material that is known in the technical fields related to the invention has not been described in detail so that the invention is not unnecessarily obscured.

Techniques to provide edge-based site analytics are disclosed herein. Consumption metrics (e.g., how much of the page was consumed, time on content, etc.) are determined without requiring a browser to execute a script, such as Javascript™ to determine such consumption metrics. A client browser sends a request for a publisher page that is resolved (e.g., through DNS routing, such as CNAME) to a content distribution network (CDN) edge server. The CDN edge server is configured to obtain publisher content for the page from the publisher's CMS.

In some embodiments, the CDN edge server includes HTML code in the page and inserts one or more consumption tracking page elements each at a corresponding location in the page. A consumption tracking page element may be unobtrusive, invisible, transparent, and/or an image, such as a 1×1 pixel. The consumption tracking page element may have a lazy loading attribute. Page elements having a lazy loading attribute are not loaded by the client browser until a location at which the consumption tracking page element is to be displayed, is in view in the browser. Once the location of the consumption tracking page element is (or is within a threshold amount of distance) to be displayed, the client browser sends to the CDN edge server a request for the consumption tracking page element. In response to the request, the CDN edge server provides the consumption tracking page element to the client browser and stores data recording the fact that the corresponding portion of the page has been viewed, how long the page was displayed before the corresponding portion of the page came into view, etc.

In some embodiments, the CDN edge server segments the page into a plurality of content portions. The CDN edge server responds to the request for the publisher page by providing an initial portion of the plurality of content portions. As a user scrolls down in the browser, the browser requests for a next portion of the page and in response, the CDN edge server provides the next portion of the content that is to be added to the bottom of the currently viewed portion of the content. The CDN edge server determines an amount of the content and/or page consumed by a user associated with the browser based on the portion(s) of the content that have been provided to the browser. The CDN or other edge server may also determine the amount of time a user associated with the browser is viewing a portion of the content. In some embodiments, the determined amount of time is based on the amount of time between when the portion of the content is provided to the browser and when a next portion of the content is provided to the browser. In some embodiments, the determined amount of time is based on the amount of time between when the portion of the content is provided to the browser and when a browser displaying a page that includes the content is closed.

By strategically placing consumption tracking page elements at different locations of a page or segmenting the page into a plurality of content portions, consumption metrics may be determined without the additional overhead of executing a user behavior tracking script.

FIG. 1A is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a prior art system to serve web pages and ads. In the example shown, a client 102, e.g., a computer system, mobile device, etc. using browser software and/or a mobile app with an embedded browser, is used to request (arrow “1”) a publisher page from a publisher's content management system 106. For example a user may have selected a link or entered in a navigation or search field a uniform resource locator (URL) associated with the publisher page. The publisher content management system 106 returns an HTML page (arrow “2”) that includes the content and/or further links/scripts to retrieve additional content. The client 102 begins to render the page and executes scripts included in the page, e.g., JavaScript™, resulting in one or more ad calls (arrow “3”) being sent to the page publisher's ad server 108 (e.g., DoubleClick™ for Publishers or another hosted ad server), which returns responsive ad information, such as an ad tag indicated an ad selected to be displayed to the user. In a typical scenario, there may be multiple calls to the publisher ad server 108, e.g., loading JavaScript™, making 1-2 calls until the ad tag is returned, etc. The response from the publisher's ad server 108 directs the client 102 to a third party ad server 110 to obtain ad creative content, e.g., video, images, scripts, etc. (arrows “5”, “6”). The client/browser 102 only then has all the (publisher plus ad) content required to fully render the originally requested page. A script included in the page may track and monitor how the user interacts with content on the page. The script reports (arrow “7”) this information to a site analytics server 112.

In the example shown in FIG. 1A, the client/browser 102 interacts with three different remote entities (106, 108, 110) to obtain and render the originally requested page. Each interaction is made over a relatively slow client-server connection from the client/browser 102 to the remote node, and multiple interactions are done to obtain and render content comprising the originally requested page. In a typical real world scenario, many more interactions than those shown in FIG. 1A may be required, e.g., to track ad impressions, etc.

FIG. 1B is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a prior art system to distribute web page content. In the example shown in FIG. 1A, the content distribution network 112 may be implemented as shown in FIG. 1B. In the example shown, CDN 120 includes a CDN distribution server 124, which is configured to retrieve web page content from publisher servers, such as publisher web server 122. When a request for a page is received, for example, the CDN 120 pulls the latest page version from the publisher CMS/web server and may or may not cache the page for further/future distribution. CDN distribution server 124 distributes via network 132 and stages copies of the content on geographically distributed CDN edge servers such as CDN edge servers 126, 128, and 130. Clients requesting a web page associated with the publisher web server 122 (or other publishers) may be directed to obtain the content from nearby CDN edge servers. In the example shown, for example, clients 134 and 136 may be directed to CDN edge server 126, clients 138 and 140 to CDN edge server 128, and client 140 to CDN edge server 130. In this manner, a requesting client may be directed to obtain a copy of the content from a CDN edge server that is nearer to the requesting client (e.g., in terms of geography, region, distance, network topology, etc.) than other CDN edge servers and/or the publisher web server 122.

While the use of CDN's such as CDN 120 of FIG. 1B enables content to be downloaded more quickly to requesting clients than if a CDN were not used, as FIG. 1A illustrates in the conventional approach a client/browser still must execute a number of scripts and engage in a series of interactions with multiple nodes to obtain and render the publisher and other (e.g., ad) content comprising a web page. Furthermore, the client/browser typically still must execute a script to track and monitor how the user interacts with content on the page.

Techniques are disclosed to generate and serve in real time a quick-loading web page comprising user-specific, optimized content. In various embodiments, a CDN or other edge server is configured to provide in response to a request, e.g., from a client/browser associated with a user, a page comprising content optimized for the user. In some embodiments, one or more scripts associated with obtaining ads to be rendered on the page are omitted from the page as sent to the client/browser. Instead, ad content to be displayed to the user in the context of the page is obtained on the server side and included in the page prior to the page being served to the client/browser. Conventional techniques to identify ad content for the user may be performed in various embodiments on the server side, prior to serving the page, to enable ad content targeted to the requesting user to be identified, obtained, and integrated into the page prior to the page being served to the client/browser. In some embodiments, cache headers are used to ensure that the page returned to the specific user/browser will be used once and only once, allowing the content (e.g., the ads) to be updated for every new request made by a browser.

In various embodiments, publisher content optimized for the user may be determined, obtained, and included in a page prior to being served to the client/browser, as disclosed herein. In some embodiments, user- and/or publisher content element-specific metrics may be used to determine for a given user with respect to a given page request the publisher content elements to be included in the page as served and/or the order and/or placement of publisher and/or ad content elements comprising the page.

In some embodiments, content publishers are enabled to customize the site-ads and editorial for each user. The position of the editorial can be varied on each subsequent visit, frequency cap the appearance of articles for that user or move the top article to the bottom position if the user already read that article. In some embodiments, user behavior and location data are used to optimize the editorial and ad layout of the sites and automatically optimize it based on subsequent engagement data.

In various embodiments, ads or other content may be integrated into a publisher's page using one or more techniques described in U.S. Pat. No. 9,286,662, issued Mar. 15, 2016, entitled Press Release Distribution System, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.

In some embodiments, third party verification (e.g., JavaScript™) calls and/or other function calls are made at the server, enabling a page to omit the code configured to make the calls from a client to which the page is served.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a system to provide user-specific optimized content. In the example shown, system 200 includes a client/browser 202 that requests (arrow “1”) a publisher page. The request is resolved (e.g., through DNS routing, such as CNAME) to a CDN edge server 206. CDN edge server 206 is configured to obtain publisher content for the page from the publisher's content server 208, e.g., the publisher's content management system (CMS) (arrows “2” and “3”). In various embodiments, the CDN edge server 206 may be configured to cache the publisher page, e.g., for a prescribed time.

The CDN edge server 206 provides the publisher page (arrow “4”) to a real time content optimization server 210, along with the original page URL (i.e., the request by the user associated with client/browser 202) and information about the requesting user (e.g., from a cookie on the client/browser 202). In some alternative embodiments, the real time content optimization server 210 obtains the publisher page directly from the publisher content server 208. In various embodiments, real time content optimization server 210 parses the publisher page to determine its structure and to extract component publisher content elements (e.g., articles, images, video, etc.) and advertising-related and other scripts. In some embodiments, scripts are parsed to determine meta-information required to identify and obtain ad content, e.g., ad content targeted for the user based on the user information received by the real time content optimization server 210 from the CDN edge server 206. In some embodiments, observed and/or user-configured preferences of the user may be used by the real time content optimization server 210 to identify/select ads for the user.

In various embodiments, real time content optimization server 210 interacts (arrows “5” and “6”) with a third party ad server 212 to identify one or more ads to be included in the page, and obtains ad content (arrows “7” and “8”) from a source of ad content 214. In some alternative embodiments, only ad HTML is injected to the page, and when the browser 202 renders the page (with the ads), the browser 202 fetches the relevant multiple-media files, such as images, from the source of ad content 214. The real time content optimization server 210 in various embodiments injects/includes the obtained ad content in the ad locations (slots) it selects, e.g., based on publisher rules and/or criteria in some embodiments, to be included in the page.

In various embodiments, consumption of publisher content elements, by an individual user and/or across users, is tracked and used to optimize the selection and/or placement of content. In some embodiments, content consumption is tracked as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,912,768, entitled MEASURING CONTENT CONSUMPTION, issued Mar. 6, 2018, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.

In some embodiments, the consumption of publisher content elements is tracked by including one or more consumption tracking page elements each at a corresponding location in the page. The consumption tracking page element may have a lazy loading attribute. Page elements having a lazy loading attribute are not loaded by the browser 202 until a location at which the consumption tracking page element is to be displayed is in view in the browser. In some embodiments, a publisher content element and/or ad content element may have a lazy loading attribute. As a user scrolls down in the browser 202, the browser 202 requests the consumption tracking page element, publisher content element, and/or ad content element to be loaded. In response, the CDN edge server 206 provides the consumption tracking page element, publisher content, and/or ad content, which is to be added to the bottom of the currently viewed portion of the content. Based on the amount of time between consumption tracking page element requests, whether or not a given consumption tracking page element is requested, etc., the CDN edge server 206 can determine one or more metrics, such as the amount of time a user is viewing a portion of the content, how fast the user scrolls between page content, whether a user's mouse hovered over an item of content, etc.

In some embodiments, the consumption of publisher content elements is tracked by segmenting the page into a plurality of content portions. The CDN edge server 206 responds to the request for the publisher page by providing an initial portion of the plurality of content portions. As a user scrolls down in the browser 202, the browser 202 requests for a next portion of the page and in response, the CDN edge server 206 provides the next portion of the content that is to be added to the bottom of the currently viewed portion of the content. Based on the amount of time between requests for content portions, the CDN edge server 206 can determine one or more metrics, such as the amount of time a user is viewing a portion of the content, how fast the user scrolls between page content, etc.

In some embodiments, real time content optimization server 210 optimizes publisher content as included in the page. For example, real time content optimization server 210 may adapt the editorial (publisher) content to better fit the user's preference. This may include, but is not limited to, promoting articles the user is likely to read, demoting articles already read by this specific user etc. Additional content that is to be included in the page as the user continues to scroll down on the page (e.g., view content, scroll between content) may be selected based on the one or more determined metrics. The additional content may correspond to publisher content and/or ad content.

In various embodiments, real time content optimization server 210 composes and returns to the CDN edge server 206 (arrow “11”) a flattened (e.g., ad-related JavaScript and/or other scripts omitted) and optimized (e.g., publisher content elements ads selected and/or placement optimally for the requesting user) page. The CDN edge server 206 serves the page (arrow “12”) to the client/browser 202, which is able to render the page relatively quickly, since at least some of the ad-related scripts are not included and the required publisher and ad content are included in the page as served. In addition, techniques disclosed herein result in a page being served in which the page HTML is not being changed while the browser needs to render it, since the ads have already been injected, so within a single run, the entire page and ads are rendered.

In some embodiments, ads or other content compatible with the layout of a publisher's page(s) may be determined programmatically. For example, the structure/layout of the publisher's page(s) may be learned and a representation of the structure stored. In some embodiments, layout changes may be detected automatically. For example, the publisher's pages may be crawled periodically and/or on an ongoing basis, and new and/or newly-structured pages may be detected and their structure learned and stored. In some embodiments, techniques are used to quickly extend to other publisher pages page structure information gleaned previously from other pages having a same/similar structure, e.g., other pages of that same publisher. In some embodiments, page structure may be learned as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,880,994, entitled DETECTING COMPATIBLE LAYOUTS FOR CONTENT-BASED NATIVE ADS, issued Jan. 30, 2018, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference for all purposes.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a system to provide user-specific optimized content. The system 300 is similar in some respects to the system 200 of FIG. 2 , except that in the example shown in FIG. 3 the real time content optimization server and/or its function(s) has/have been integrated into a content optimizing CDN edge server 306.

In the example shown in FIG. 3 , a client/browser 302 requests (arrow “1”) a publisher page and request is resolved to a content optimizing CDN (or other) edge server 306. Edge server 306 includes real time content optimization service 308 (e.g., as co- or locally hosted server, a module, etc.). In various embodiments, real time content optimization service 308 determines publisher and ad content for and composes a page optimized for the requesting user, e.g., as described above in connection with real time content optimization server 210. Specifically, in the example shown, real time content optimization service 308 obtains publisher page structure information and/or publisher content elements from publisher content server 310 (arrows “2” and “3”); identifies ads targeted to the user via a call to ad server 312 (arrows “4” and “5”); and obtains ad creative content from ad content server/network 314 (arrows “6” and “7”). Real time content optimization service 308 uses the obtained page structure information, publisher content element information and content, and ad information and content to compose a flattened (e.g., some/all ad scripts omitted, publisher and ad content included statically) page to be served to the requesting client/browser 302 (arrow “8”). In some alternative embodiments, the ad creative content (video, images, etc.) is obtained by the client/browser 302 directly from a source of ad content, e.g., ad content 314.

In some embodiments, a system similar to that shown in FIG. 3 is used, except that the real time optimization service 308 is hosted in a separate server interposed between the CDN edge server 306 and the publisher content server 310, ad server 312, and ad content 314. In some such embodiments, the CDN edge server 306 does not retrieve page content for a publisher page from the publisher content server 310 (e.g., publisher's CMS) and instead obtains the page, fully flattened (e.g., ads stitched in, etc.) as disclosed herein, from the real time optimization service 308.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a content optimization server/service. In various embodiments, real time content optimization service 308 of FIG. 3 and/or real time content optimization server 210 of FIG. 2 may be implemented at least in part as shown in FIG. 4 . In the example shown, real time content optimization service 308 includes a request handler 402 that processes requests 404 for publisher pages received via an internal or external (e.g., network) communication interface. Request handler 402 passes the page request (e.g., URL, requesting client) and associated user information (e.g., user identifier or other identifier, e.g., from a cookie or other source) to content optimization module 406. In various embodiments, content optimization module 406 comprises a set of one or more processes and associated data structures configured to determine page structure and content (publisher and/or ad content) to compose and serve a page with content optimized for the requesting user, as disclosed herein.

In the example shown, content optimization module 406 uses page metadata stored in page metadata database 412 to determine the page structure of the requested page. In various embodiments, the page structure may have been learned by previously crawling and parsing the page and/or a page having a similar structure, and storing a representation of the page structure in page metadata database 412. In some embodiments, if the page structure is not already known the page is retrieved, e.g., from the publisher's content management system, and the page is parsed and analyzed in real time to determine its structure. For example, processing may be performed to determine the page is similar in structure to a page processed previously and for which a representation of the page structure was stored previously. Or, the page structure may simply be determined in real time. In some embodiment, page structure is determined in the background and the page is returned “as is” for the first few calls, until the structure of the page has been learned.

In this example, content optimization module 406 consults and applies publisher rules 414 to determine optimized content for the page. Publisher rules 414 may be configured a priori by or on behalf of the publisher to indicate the publisher's preferences and/or requirements as to which content elements on which pages may be optimized in which manner. For example, a publisher may prescribe or otherwise define a rule that limits the reordering of content elements so that the topmost content element is never moved, is always moved, and/or may (only) under prescribed conditions be moved to a lower position in the page. In another example, a publisher may establish a rule that no more than a prescribed number or proportion of content elements may be replaced and/or reordered, or that content elements in adjacent/consecutive page locations may not be replaced. Additional examples of publisher rules include, without limitation, rules based on geolocation of the user, time of day, day of the week, or season of the year; rules based on the number of times the same user has been shown the same or similar content; etc.

Content optimization module 406 also uses information about the user with whom the request is associated. User identify information receive with the request 404 is used to access information about the user from a user knowledge base 416. In various embodiments, user knowledge base 416 may contain user-specific information about the individual user. For example, information read from cookies placed previously on the user's browser may be used to observe the user's browsing history and/or habits.

In some embodiments, the real time content optimization service 308 receives from the client a request that include first-party (publisher) cookies associated with the publisher's site domain and ad server cookies. The real time content optimization service 308 identifies the source of each cookie and sends each to its owner. The real time content optimization service 308 merges received cookies and cookies being written as first party (under the site domain) and returns a response. In some embodiments, real time content optimization service 308 adds an additional cookie sync pixel for first time users. The pixel sends a request to a third party ad server (with the third-party cookie). The ad server returns third-party cookie information and redirects back to the real time content optimization service 308 to complete the cookie sync process.

In some embodiments, tags or code on or associated with publisher pages served to the user may generate content consumption metrics specific for that user with high granularity. For example, the amount of time the user spent interacting with each specific content element on a page (e.g., video clip, image, retailer product browsing widget, other ads or sponsored content, individual article summaries, etc.) may be observed and reported and used update the user's record in the user knowledge base 416. In some embodiments, demographic, geolocation, and/or other information about the user may be used to access from user knowledge base 420 information about what content the user may respond to more favorably, e.g., based on observation of content consumption metrics across users in that same demographic, geographic region, etc. In some embodiments, the code associated with a publisher page includes one or more consumption tracking page elements, each at a corresponding location in the page. In some embodiments, the consumption tracking page element comprises an image. For example, the image may be a 1×1 pixel, a cascading style sheet (CSS) background image, etc. In some embodiments, the image page element is invisible on the page. In some embodiments, the image replaces a punctuation or symbol, such as a period, question mark, comma, parentheses, or exclamation mark, in the page content. In some embodiments, the image has a lazy loading attribute that is not loaded by a browser until a location at which the image is to be displayed, is in view in the browser. In some embodiments, a publisher content element and/or ad content element may have a lazy loading attribute. In some embodiments, the consumption tracking page element comprises an animated gif. For example, the animated gif may have the size of a 1×1 pixel. In some embodiments, the code associated with the publisher page segments the page into a plurality of content portions.

User knowledge base 416 may also include information identifying which content elements (publisher content, ads) the user has already seen, e.g., in previously-accessed publisher pages, and/or how many times and in which locations the content was displayed. In some embodiments, this information may be used to determine placement within the page of a content element. For example, an article the user has seen once before may be placed lower in the page, or may be placed lower or even omitted based on previously observed interaction of the user with that content.

In the example shown, user information is used along with content analytics data 418 to select optimized content for the user. For example, the performance of each individual content element, whether publisher content or ad content, may be tracked over time and content elements determined to generate higher interest from users and/or from users like the requesting user may be more likely to be included in the page as composed for and served to this requesting user.

In various embodiments, the user knowledge base 416 and content analytics data 418 are updated continuously and/or periodically by analytics module/interface 420. In various embodiments, analytics module/interface 420 may receive raw content consumption and/or user data and analyze the data locally to populate and/or update user knowledge base 416 and/or content analytics data 418, and/or analytics module/interface 420 may receive a report or representation of analysis performed centrally and sent to analytics module/interface 420 via communications interface 422.

In various embodiments, content optimization module 406 uses one or more of the request 404 and associated user information received from request handler 402; page metadata 412; publisher rules 414; user knowledge base 416; and content analytics 418 to determine optimized content to be included in a page to be served in response to the request 404. In some embodiments, a real time call may be made to an ad server, such as ad server 312, to determine an optimal, targeted ad to be included in the page. In some alternative embodiments, an ad may be selected based on page metadata 412, which may include continuously updated data concerning ads to be targeted to users based on user attributes, other user information, and/or page information. In some embodiments, an ad may be determined in real time via an auction or other competitive marketplace, conducted by the real time content optimization service 308 or a third party service. In various embodiments, the functionality of a full ad stack (multiple ad formats, all targeting capabilities, auctions, etc.) are embedded into a server side process, as disclosed herein.

In the example shown in FIG. 4 , the content optimization module 406 passes to page assembly module 408 the page structure and identification and placement of publisher and ad content elements to be included in the page. Page assembly module 408 retrieves the publisher content from a publisher content store 424 and the ad content from ad content store 426, and uses the page structure and placement information to compose the page. In some embodiments, page assembly module 408 places one or more consumption tracking page elements at one or more locations of the page.

In various embodiments, publisher content may be retrieved in advance by publisher content retrieval module and/or process 428, via communication interface 430. For example, over time publisher pages may be crawled by publisher content retrieval module and/or process 428 and the pages parsed to extract individual content elements that may be subject to be reordered and/or replaced by sponsored (e.g., ad) content. Page metadata 412 may be updated to reflect the page structure and/or to include identification of the content elements and/or attributes of and/or other metadata relating to the individual content elements. In some embodiments, the latter metadata may be used to identify and select the content element(s) to be included in a given page in response to a request. In some embodiments, if not already presented publisher content for a page may be retrieved in real time, and the page processed in real time to extract the page structure and content elements.

In some embodiments, the caching of pages is done based on the publisher CMS cache settings. If the publisher configures its CMS to allow caching for certain amount of time (like age HTTP header), or allows caching and just verifying the page (e.g., using ETAG) the content optimization stores a local copy. “Prefetching” and “crawling” as described herein are used in various embodiments to understand what other content exists on the publisher's site, including content that might not be promoted currently on all pages, and is available to be presented to a specific user as part of the rules/recommendations from the content optimization module.

Likewise, in various embodiments ad content 426 may be obtained in advance and cached, in this example by ad content retrieval module and/or process 432 via communication interface 434, and/or may be obtained in real time. In some embodiments, ads are not cached, and are instead selected and retrieved dynamically per request, based on the user, geolocation, time considerations (e.g., pacing), etc.

In various embodiments, the optimized page composed by page assembly module 408 as described herein is provided to the request handler 402 and is returned to the requesting user as page 410. In various embodiments, the page 410 includes content optimized for the user as disclosed herein. The page 410 in various embodiments includes no JavaScript™ or other code required to be executed by the requesting client/browser to retrieve ads or publisher content. In some embodiments, the page 410 does not include JavaScript™ or other scripts to track and report content consumption metrics, and page 410 instead includes one or more consumption tracking page elements to enable content consumption to be tracked at the edge server 306, as described herein.

In some embodiments, ad verification code is not included on the page. Instead, real time content optimization service 308 and/or one or more other components of content optimizing edge server 306 execute the verification script on behalf of the requesting client and/or otherwise provides verification to the advertiser and/or ad service or network.

In various embodiments, providing a page with content optimized for the user and minimal scripts provides a page having content much more likely to be of interest to the user while providing a more desirable user experience since the page loads and displays fully much more quickly. In various embodiments, caching publisher and/or ad content on the edge server 306 and/or offloading to the much higher capacity processors and network connections of the edge server 306 tasks such as publisher content retrieval, ad identification, and ad content retrieval, enables an optimized page to be served and displayed much more quickly than under prior approaches, such as those illustrated in FIG. 1A.

In various embodiments, an optimized page provided to a first user as disclosed herein may be cached for a limited time, e.g., at an edge server such as edge server 306 of FIG. 3 . In some embodiments, such a cached page may be served to a second user determined to be (sufficiently) similar to the first user, e.g., if a request for the same publisher page is received from the second user while the page remains available in the cache. For example, a vector or other representation of the user attributes of the first user may be stored and associated with the cached page. A subsequent request received from the second user may be processed in part by determining a corresponding vector for the second user. If the distance/difference between the vectors is less than a prescribed threshold, the cached page is served to the second user. If not, a page optimized for the second user is constructed and served, as disclosed herein.

In some embodiments, techniques disclosed herein are used to determine optimal content and/or placement across users. For example, “A/B” testing may be performed by serving versions A and B of a page to different and/or overlapping sets of similar users. User engagement for a content element of interest is measured, and the page and/or content version that performs best may be served to subsequent users who request the page. In some embodiments, user engagement for a content element of interest is measured based on tracking whether a consumption tracking page element is requested by a browser from a CDN edge server. In some embodiments, user engagement for a content element of interest is measured based on an amount of time between a browser receiving a portion of a page that includes the content element of interest and the browser requesting a next portion of the page. In some embodiments, user engagement for a content element of interest is measured based on whether a user's mouse hovered the content element of interest.

FIG. 5A is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a system to create and maintain a user knowledge base. In the example shown, user knowledge base 416 is shown to include data reflecting user browsing history 502, user content consumption metrics 504, demographic information 506, and user profile/preference information 508. In various embodiments, user browsing history 502 is determined from one or more cookies placed previously on the user's browser. User content consumption metrics 504 in various embodiments is gathered based on page requests (e.g., a request for a consumption tracking page element or a next portion of a page) from on the user's client/browser and includes information reflecting user interaction with ads or other content elements, such as time displayed, amount of video viewed, etc. User content consumption metrics 504, such as the number of page views, how much of the page was consumed, time on content, etc., in various embodiments is gathered by modules running on a CDN or other edge server. Demographic information 506 may include information known, learned, or inferred about the user, e.g., based on content consumption habits, purchases, etc. In some embodiments, a location is associated with the request, e.g., based on the source IP address. User profile/preference data 508 may in some embodiments include preferences explicitly indicated by the user (e.g., don't show me ads or content like this; or expressing interest in user-selected subjects, etc.) and/or user demographic or other information expressly indicated and/or learned or inferred about the user.

FIG. 5B is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a system to create and maintain a content analytics knowledge base. In this example, content analytics data 418 includes content consumption metrics 522 and ad content performance 524. In some embodiments, publisher content and ad content are treated similarly, as content elements available to be included in an optimized page. In some embodiments, content analytics data 418 includes normalized data enabling the performance and/or level of interest for a given user of content elements to be determined and compared, whether they comprise publisher content or ad content.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process to provide user-specific optimized content. In various embodiments, the process of FIG. 6 is performed wholly and/or in part by an edge server, such as edge server 306 of FIG. 3 . In the example shown, a request for a publisher page is received (602). The request is a HTTP request for a particular page. The request includes a URL associated with the particular page. A page optimized for a user with whom the request is associated is generated dynamically (604) and served to the user (606).

FIG. 7 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process to generate dynamically a web page comprising user-specific optimized content. In various embodiments, the process of FIG. 7 is performed to implement step 604 of the process of FIG. 6 . In the example shown, attributes of a user with whom a page request is associated are determined (702). A page structure of the requested page is determined (704). Publisher content appropriate for the page and optimized for the user is obtained (706). Ad content targeted for the user is determined and obtained (708). The page structure, publisher content, ad content, and content placement determined to be optimized for the user are used to compose a page optimized for the user (710).

FIG. 8 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process to determine user-specific content to be included in a dynamically generated optimized web page. In various embodiments, the process of FIG. 8 is used to implement step 706 of the process of FIG. 7 . In the example shown, publisher pages are ingested (e.g., crawled) (802). The publisher pages are parsed to determine page structure and extract content elements (804). In some embodiments, the page structure information is stored in a database, such as page metadata store 412 of FIG. 4 . Extracted content elements may be cached in a publisher content store, such as publisher content store 424 of FIG. 4 . Content elements optimized for the user, based on the user's attributes, are selected to be included in a page to be served in response to the request (806).

In various embodiments, techniques disclosed herein may be used to serve ads optimized for the user, even if the user is using ad blocking technologies to prevent or interfere with ad calls from the browser. In various embodiments, techniques disclosed herein may increase user interest in publisher and/or ad content provided to the user via a publisher's pages, increasing user interest and loyalty to the publisher and its pages, resulting in increased ad revenue and other benefits to the publisher. By enabling ad-related and other JavaScript™ to be omitted from pages as served to a user, and by offloading to much faster server processors and connections the task of determining and retrieving publisher and ad content, a faster page loading and browsing experience may be provided to users who navigate to a publisher's page(s).

FIG. 9 is a flow chart illustrating an embodiment of a process to perform edge-based site analytics. In various embodiments, the process of FIG. 9 is used to implement some of step 606 of the process of FIG. 6 .

At 902, content comprising the page is provided. In some embodiments, the content includes an element which when rendered by a browser with which the page request is associated causes the page as rendered by the browser to send a request initiated by the page to obtain an associated requested content. The element may comprise HTML code. The term “initiated by the page” is defined herein to mean that the request is sent by the browser by executing HTML or other content comprising the page resulting in the page itself being identified as the sender of the request. In contrast, a request sent by a script, such as Javascript™, that is loaded in connection with viewing the page would identify the script as the initiator or sender of the request.

In some embodiments, the associated requested content is consumption tracking page element. In some embodiments, the consumption tracking page element comprises an image. For example, the image may be a 1×1 pixel, a CSS background image, etc. In some embodiments, the image page element is invisible on the page. In some embodiments, the image replaces a punctuation or symbol, such as a period, question mark, comma, parentheses, or exclamation mark, in the page content. In some embodiments, the image has a lazy loading attribute.

In some embodiments, the consumption tracking page element comprises an animated gif. For example, the animated gif may have the size of a 1×1 pixel.

In some embodiments, the request is initiated by the page in response to a mouse pointer hovering over a location of a consumption tracking page element. In some embodiments, the request is initiated by the page in response to a mouse pointer hovering over content provided with the page (e.g., a consumption tracking page element, a publisher content element having a lazy loading attribute, an ad content element having a lazy loading attribute, etc.). A CSS class that has a hover styling may be used. The CSS class may include a transparent image or transparent background that is used to record the hovering event.

In some embodiments, content provided with the page is associated with a lazy loading attribute. In some embodiments, the content provided with the page is an image, a video, etc. A publisher may be charged by a service provider based on the amount of data that is transmitted to a client browser. Including a publisher content element (e.g., images, videos, etc.) with a lazy loading attribute in a page may reduce the overall amount of data that is transmitted to the client browser because the content is not provided to the browser until a location at which the content having the lazy loading attribute is in view in the browser. In some embodiments, the content is ad content. Including an ad content element with a lazy loading attribute in a page may reduce advertising costs associated with an ad provider because the ad provider is not charged for ad content that is not displayed by a browser.

In some embodiments, the content comprising the page corresponds to an initial portion of the page. The CDN edge server may segment the page into a plurality of content portions. The CDN edge server responds to the request for the publisher page by providing an initial portion of the plurality of content portions.

At 904, the request initiated by the page is received. In some embodiments, the page requests for an image corresponding to a consumption tracking page element that is located at a particular location within the page. In some embodiments, the page requests for content associated with a publisher content element or an ad content element having a lazy loading attribute that is located at a particular location within the page. In some embodiments, the page requests for a frame associated with an animated gif that is located at a particular location within the page. In some embodiments, the request is for content having a lazy loading attribute. In some embodiments, the request is for a next portion of the page.

At 906, content associated with the request is provided. In some embodiments, the provided content is an image. In some embodiments, the provided content is publisher content. In some embodiments, the provided content is ad content. In some embodiments, the provided content is a frame of an animated gif. In some embodiments, the provided content is content having a lazy loading attribute. In some embodiments, the provided content is a next portion of the page.

At 908, a metric associated with the request initiated by the page is determined. The request initiated by the page indicates that a corresponding portion of the page and the content included in the corresponding portion have been viewed. The request initiated by the page indicates when the request was performed. The amount of time before the corresponding portion of the page has been viewed may be determined based on the amount of time between providing the page to the browser and receiving from the browser a request that is initiated by the page. The amount of time between requests may indicate a rate at which a user associated with browser is viewing content that is displayed in the page (e.g., scrolling). Whether or not a given consumption tracking page element is requested may be determined based on whether a user's mouse hovered over an item of content.

In the event an animated gif is placed at a location on the page, the amount of time a user associated with a browser is viewing content that is at or near the location of the animated gif may be determined based on a frequency at which the page requests a frame for the animated gif (e.g., one frame per second) and the number of frames that are provided to the browser.

In some embodiments, the metric is a statistical value (e.g., average, median, mode, upper limit, lower limit, etc.). In some embodiments, the metric is specific for a particular user. In some embodiments, the metric is for all users that request the page. In some embodiments, the metric is determined for different demographics.

In some embodiments, additional content to include in the page is selected based on the determined metric.

At 910, data reflecting the metric associated with the request initiated by the page is stored. The data may be stored in a user knowledge base and/or a content analytics data store.

At 912, it is determined whether there is another request initiated by the page. For example, a user may continue to scroll down a page. In the event there is another request initiated by the page, process 900 returns to 906. In the event there is not another request initiated by the page, process 900 ends. For example, the user may have closed the browser. In some embodiments, process 900 ends in the event a timeout condition has been satisfied (e.g., a page request has not been received in 60 minutes).

FIG. 10 is an example of a publisher page and a publisher page analyzer in accordance with some embodiments. In the example shown, the requests associated with publisher page 1002 is displayed by publisher page analyzer 1012. In some embodiment, publisher page 1002 is provided at step 606 of process 600.

A user associated with a browser may enter a URL, such as the URL for the LA Times into an address bar of the browser. HTML code associated with the URL is received and run by the browser. The HTML code causes the browser to request a plurality of assets, such as script 1006 and consumption tracking page element 1008.

Publisher page analyzer 1012 indicates an initiator of a request. For example, an initiator 1014 having a value of “index” indicates that the page 1002 initiated the request. An initiator 1014 having a value that is different from “index” indicates that an entity other than the page 1002 initiated the request. A browser may execute a script that is requested by the page 1002, such as script 1006 (“gpt.js:10”). In the example shown, the initiator 1018 of the request for consumption tracking page element 1008 was the page 1002 and the initiator 1016 of the request for script 1010 was the script 1006.

Although the foregoing embodiments have been described in some detail for purposes of clarity of understanding, the invention is not limited to the details provided. There are many alternative ways of implementing the invention. The disclosed embodiments are illustrative and not restrictive. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A system, comprising: a communication interface configured to receive a request for a page; and a processor coupled to the communication interface and configured to: in response to the request, provide via the communication interface content comprising the page, the content including an element which when executed by a browser with which the page request is associated causes the page as rendered by the browser to send a request initiated by the page to obtain an associated requested content, wherein the element includes a consumption tracking page element that replaces an item included in the content; receive, via the communication interface, the request initiated by the page; determine a metric associated with the request initiated by the page; and store data reflecting the metric associated with the request initiated by the page.
 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the element comprises HTML, code.
 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the consumption tracking page element comprises an image.
 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the consumption tracking page element is one or more of unobtrusive, invisible, and transparent.
 5. The system of claim 1, wherein the consumption tracking page element comprises a 1×1 pixel.
 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the consumption tracking page element comprises an animated gif.
 7. The system of claim 1, wherein the content corresponds to an initial portion of the page.
 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the element has a lazy loading attribute.
 9. The system of claim 1, wherein the metric associated with the request indicates content consumption associated with the page.
 10. The system of claim 1, wherein the metric associated with the request is at least one of a time of consumption, an amount of content consumed, and/or a rate at which the page content is being consumed.
 11. The system of claim 1, wherein the metric associated with the request is determined based at least in part on a time from providing the content to receiving the request initiated by the page.
 12. The system of claim 1, wherein the request initiated by the page is associated with a publisher of the page.
 13. The system of claim 12, wherein the publisher of the page is identified by a page URL of the page included in the request.
 14. The system of claim 1, wherein the processor is further configured to use the metric to compute one or more statistics associated with the page.
 15. The system of claim 1, wherein the metric is used to select additional content comprising the page.
 16. The system of claim 15, wherein the processor is further configured to provide the selected additional content via the communication interface.
 17. The system of claim 1, wherein the request for the page is a hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) request and includes a uniform resource locator (URL) of the page.
 18. A method, comprising: receiving a request for a page; in response to the request, providing content comprising the page, the content including an element which when executed by a browser with which the page request is associated causes the page as rendered by the browser to send a request initiated by the page to obtain an associated requested content, wherein the element includes a consumption tracking page element that replaces an item included in the content; receiving the request initiated by the page; determining a metric associated with the request initiated by the page; and storing data reflecting the metric associated with the request initiated by the page.
 19. The method of claim 18, wherein the metric associated with the request is at least one of a time of consumption, an amount of content consumed, and/or a rate at which the page content is being consumed.
 20. A computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium and comprising computer instructions for: receiving a request for a page; in response to the request, providing content comprising the page, the content including an element which when executed by a browser with which the page request is associated causes the page as rendered by the browser to send a request initiated by the page to obtain an associated requested content, wherein the element includes a consumption tracking page element that replaces an item included in the content; receiving the request initiated by the page; determining a metric associated with the request initiated by the page; and storing data reflecting the metric associated with the request initiated by the page. 